January 30 2013

Statistically Speaking

Dean Radin, a Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, and author of The Conscious Universe and Entangled Minds, tells an interesting story about shopping for office and lab space around the time of the Dot Com Bust in 2001. He was working on putting together The Boundary Institute, a research organization intended to focus on the exploration of Edge phenomena in physics and psychology.

He had previously lined up a number of Silicon Valley-based entrepreneurs to launch and fund the Institute at a level that would have permitted finding a home for the initiative in the pricier environs of that storied locale. Well, the wealth implosion that now ensued sent those dreams of loftier habitation in a new, more pedestrian direction – Los Altos. Specifically, to a somewhat forlorn strip mall in Los Altos.

So, he signs a lease on a suite of rooms and proceeds to settle in and begins to make plans for appointing the general office space and, crucially, sketching out the next steps involved in converting one of the rooms into a lab with the shielded walls required to conduct the sensitive research he intends to pursue.

As he’s coming and going during that first week, the words on the door of an adjoining office catch his eye, PSIQuest, Inc. That’s funny, he thought, must be a personnel firm of some sort. Some weeks later he notices that another, previously unmarked door, between the lobby door of his offices and the PSIQuest, Inc. office suite, now sports a small sign with a slightly different name on it, PSIQuest Laboratory. Well, now this is really peculiar! Why would a personnel office require a lab?

Though he had occasionally glanced between the blinds of the window next to the door with the PSIQuest, Inc. sign, he had never seen anyone inside. Now, with his curiosity piqued, he was determined to meet whoever might be behind these mysterious doors.

Later that week, he finally noticed a light on in the PSIQuest office. He knocks and is greeted by a man whose face quickly contorts into a mask of shocked recognition. As Dean is introducing himself, the enigmatic neighbor begins to mumble that, yes, he knows who he is. It turns out that the man, whose name was John, had, some months before, cashed in his stock and retired from Apple – he had been a principal designer of the Apple notebook computer.

He was now following a long-held desire and avocation to begin research in parapsychology. Imagine that – less than a handful of PSI research facilities in the country, and now two more were setting up shop steps away from one another!

Well, Dean asked, what are you working on? Still having some trouble finding the words, John said that he had been engaging in the practice of Tibetan Dream Yoga, for two hours a day over the last couple months, with the goal of materializing – Dean Radin! John continued, haltingly, to say that he had been following Dean’s work for years and decided that he wanted to meet him. He had been unable to track him down since Dean had left the University of Nevada, the position he held immediately prior to his efforts to establish The Boundary Institute. And now, there he was – standing in front of him!

Both men still somewhat shaken, John then took Dean on a tour of the lab he had built. It turns out that the building of the heavily shielded walls required a special zoning clearance that had actually been initially requested over a year before. As Dean studied the equipment, its placement and general layout of the lab, it dawned on him that this was the lab he had envisioned for himself! Oh, and it also turned out that one of the walls of Dean’s personal office was shared with the shielded lab.

So, could one say that, as John Tibetan Dream Yoga-ed Dean into materializing before him, Dean did the same regarding his ideal lab set-up?

Nah, what are the odds?

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